Search This Blog

Why Osborne is totally wrong

George Osborne, in his speech to the Conservative party conference demonstrated the total lack of understanding of administration that we have come to expect from almost any politician in the UK.

Faced with the explosion in the costs of the public sector, Osborne's answer is simply to freeze salaries across the board. It is certainly the case that labour costs have run out of line, but the deal that Osborne offers is essentially "accept a pay freeze and keep your job". This is not public sector reform: indeed it pretty much guarantees that the motivated staff will leave and the quality of public sector personnel will fall.

Mr. Osborne's supposedly "eye catching" and "brave reform" in effect strangles the ability of public sector management to carry out the necessary streamlining of the system: they can not fire under performing staff and they can not incentivize the staff that they want to keep.

This is not public sector reform: it is the abandonment of such reform. The signal that the freeze sends will send to staff is very clear- no matter what you do you will be paid the same and keep your job. You can not be incentivized and you can not be fired.

From Teachers and Nurses to Prison Officers, the unintended consequences of Mr. Osborne's abject ignorance of basic management will be the exit of good quality staff and an overall decline in the effectiveness of those who remain.

It is, in other words, precisely the kind of disaster that only someone who has never managed any kind of business could seriously suggest as a sensible policy.

Dan Hannan had the nerve to say that the Conservatives were the true heirs to the Manchester Liberals. The difference though is that the Manchester Liberals were competent.

George Osborne is already demonstrating that he will be a foolish, ignorant, ineffectual and incompetent Chancellor of the Exchequer. The fact that the current incumbents are equally incompetent is not much of a comfort.

You are absolutely right. It was noticable in the mid 1990s though there was a trend in business and government away from making evidence based decisions. Osborne is correct in saying the cost of the state needs to be reduced but he slips out of taking on the responsibility of deciding what is wasteful spending (quangos, I.T. vanity projects) and what offers value for money (nurses, competent teachers)The kind of people able and willing to make those decisions are only found among people who have held proper jobs, not among those who get their degree and then go straight into politics or academic life.

Liberals are never in business in my experience. It is generally a Party of teachers led by Financial Journalists and Bankers. Real business is not their world but when I meet a Liberal Builder I'll let you know.I think you are unreasonable to ask Osborne to announce he will be firing one of the 8,000,000 voters whom Liberal rely on more than any other Party. I did not hear Clegg say anything about redundancies , perhaps I missed it You think the Public Sector can be run like business but I cannot see how .We have tested targets and indicators to destruction and privatising is on the Conservative agenda where possible in the NHS and there will be the beginnings of a market in education. will shrink under Conservatives It will never be efficien but then that is not its role . The idea that the Liberals would take on the NUT is one of the more risible of your Fairy tales C ....Why is it that the Liberal Party seem to have an army of caravanning campaigners for by elections in the school holidays do you suppose?

One of the consequences of the freeze is that few new posts come open. If one does, to save costs and keep good harmony in the workplace, it will generally be placed in-house.

The private sector is not exactly creating jobs at present, is it?

Anyone knows that placing your job at risk now is to risk financial ruin. A good quality person leaves the public sector to an uncertain job in the private sector? If there were plenty of opportunities, maybe. If you have a mortgage to pay, and taking a risk which could leave you without a job may very well risk a long stretch of unemployment, you stay put.

Management by fear, which is what you seem to be advocating, does not work, Cicero. People who are frightened that if they put a foot wrong they may lose their job and thus face homelessness play it safe. So don't try anything innovative, do just what the boss says, don't don't don't be a troublemaker (e.g. by pointing out where money is being wasted or the boss is useless). That is what we are seeing in the public sector now, Cicero, and that is what you are advocating.

People are motivated by personal pride in the job, curiosity, wanting to provide a good service, not just by money, Cicero. So job security actually works because people aren't afraid to try something out that might be good and might not.

Popular posts from this blog

By Special Request of Baroness Scott and Mark Valladares... Cicero's Songs returns: bigger, longer and uncut. October 1st marked the half way point of the
Estonian Presidency of the European Union. Perhaps for many people such an anniversary is
of passing interest at best. Yet the
conduct of the Estonian Presidency is reinforcing just how forward looking and
innovative the most northerly of the Baltic States has become. Estonia is a country that wants to live in the future, and
with its openness and innovation, that future seems a lot closer than almost
anywhere else in Europe It is not that Estonia does not “do” the past: the
picturesque cobbled streets of old Tallinn have tourist crowds a-plenty enjoying
the mediaeval architecture in an Indian summer of sunshine and blue skies. The real point is that Estonia refuses to be
a prisoner of its past. Lennart Meri, Estonia’s President in the 1990s- who spent
years of his childhood in Siberia- once told me that the country had to
conc…

In December 1941, Imperial Japan launched a surprise attack on the United States at Pearl Harbor. After the subsequent declaration of war, within three days, the Japanese had sunk the British warships, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, and the rapid Japanese attack led to the surrender of Hong Kong on Christmas Day 1941 and the fall of Singapore only two months after Pearl Harbor. These were the opening blows in the long war of the Pacific that cost over 30,000,000 lives and was only ended with the detonations above Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

"History doesn't often repeat itself, but it rhymes" is an aphorism attributed to Mark Twain, and in a way it seems quite appropriate when we survey the current scene.

In 1941, Imperial Japan, knowing its own weakness, chose a non-conventional form of war, the surprise attack. Since the end of his first Presidential term, Vladimir Putin, knowing Russia's weakness, has also chosen non-conventional ways to promote his domestic powe…

It is a basic contention of this blog that Donald J Trump is not fit for office.

A crooked real estate developer with a dubious past and highly questionable finances. he has systematically lied his way into financial or other advantage. His personal qualities include vulgarity, sexual assault allegations and fraudulent statements on almost every subject.

He lost the popular vote by nearly three million votes.

He has, of course, been under criminal investigation practically since before he took the oath of office. The indictment of some of closest advisers is just the beginning. His track record suggests that in due course there is no action he will not take, whether illegal or unconstitutional in order to derail his own inevitable impeachment and the indictments that must surely follow the successful investigation of Robert Mueller into his connections with Russia.